Cultivating the Art of Leadership

I'm going to a storytelling workshop on Thursday. I've read (and assigned) books on the power of story. I'm fascinated by people who naturally tell great stories.

My friend, Eric Bell, tells off-the-beaten track stories that are always rich with detail -- such as the real frog in the real salad story, the story of meeting Sophie in Escalante, his die-on-your-cushion zendo story, and how his daughter became an acclaimed graffiti artist. Eric knows a lot of truly arcane things, but he's always able to share them in the form of a story.

My friend and colleague, Ian Davison, tells great stories about chasing venture capital, kicking a soccer ball at midnight on the beach in Ipanema, swimming in the Dead Sea and barely making curfew off the beach. Ian can lean toward the dramatic -- whether in humor or in stories.

My dad too could tell quite mesmerizing stories. Problem was you never knew fact from fiction with him. An infamous story was when placed an ad in the Village Voice stating "millionaire seeks young female violinist heard playing" on a street corner in New York. He placed this story in an "ad" in the Village Voice. And, bored NYC journalists called him, hoping to get the "scoop."

My dad ended up on Good Morning America, with his violinist (whom he found at Julliard and not on a street corner in New York), promoting his Chopin Society concert at Carnegie Hall. He also got in trouble for taking liberties with the truth and ended up on another morning news show telling more stories and, of course, taking more liberties with his narrative. He couldn't help himself, he fundamentally believed that one shouldn't let the truth get in the way of a good story.

Another colleague, from my Lotus days, Pierre Van Beneden, kept rising in stature, moving up to Executive VP Worldwide Field Operations. I remember Pierre taking the time in his 40s to invest in his own presentation skills. I've been thinking about how dramatically this work affected Pierre's ability to hold an audience and to enroll large, diverse groups -- in things ranging from strategic direction to revenue demands -- often with the power of story.

Story. It's how others step into our worlds. It's how we all best remember things of importance or any kind of complexity. And, the stories we select implicitly build our own identity and transmit our values.

Leaders, therefore, must be even more attuned to stories, what's explicit and what's embedded in them as well.